


(they say) with time

by anaer



Series: silver bells and cockle shells [1]
Category: Marvel (Comics), Marvel 616, X-Men (Comicverse), X-Men Evolution
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Anxiety, Child Abuse, Drama, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Marvel Universe Big Bang 2018
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-03
Updated: 2018-11-03
Packaged: 2019-08-16 21:50:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,505
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16503347
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anaer/pseuds/anaer
Summary: Scott deals with the past.  Or, rather: the past deals with him.





	(they say) with time

**Author's Note:**

> Wow, I can't believe I finished. I also can't believe this is the first fic I've posted all year. My first successful bang! Thanks to WaterSoter and salazarastark for all the help and support.

Scott had a standing appointment every Tuesday at five. Aside from the Professor and Storm – she’d been his designated chauffeur before he’d been licensed to drive on his own – Jean was the only one to know about it, though there was a strong possibility Logan did, too. Well…the other students knew, but they didn’t know what it was, just that he disappeared for about an hour and a half at the same time every week. This had led to much speculation, mainly perpetuated by Kurt and Kitty, as to what the nature of Scott’s secret, clandestine meetings could be. Kitty had argued ‘secret girlfriend’ before he’d started dating Jean and changed it to ‘secret mistress’ after. Kurt still purported that he’d followed Scott once, and Scott was clearly secretly going off on solo spy missions that lasted the exact same amount of time every week. He just rolled his eyes and ignored them.

Scott had never purposely missed an appointment. There were, of course, the times he’d been on the run from the government, kidnapped to the middle of a Mexican desert by a psychopathic, entirely too vindictive shapeshifter, or struck down by a nasty flu. Exigent circumstances, really. Emergencies. They couldn’t be helped.

The weekly meetings were a remnant of the agreement he’d made with the Professor back when he’d first moved in. _Agreement._ That might’ve been too loose a word for it. Decree would better fit, a condition for staying handed down that the traumatized fifteen year old he’d been hadn’t been too keen on at the time. If Scott wanted to stay, he would talk to someone. It was _‘for his own good’_ , the Professor had said, like he hadn’t heard those words before.

Scott’s bag had still been packed, so he’d snuck down to the kitchen in the middle of the night to fill the remaining space in his backpack with whatever food he could grab, rifling through the cupboards before hoofing it. He made it all the way past the gates before he stopped, suddenly floundering at the prospect of being back on his own – back on the streets. Scott didn’t know how long he sat there, but then it was dawn and an engine revved in the distance. Logan pulled up on his motorcycle and stopped, gave him a long, hard stare, then drove the rest of the way through the gates. Scott stood up and walked back in, agreed with the Professor’s one request because he didn’t have any other good options, and had gone the very next Tuesday.

Fifteen sessions, they’d agreed on, and Scott had wanted weekly to get it over with faster. The doctor was a mutant, too, it turned out, and she listened. Anything he wanted to talk about – fluff at first, then more, his powers, the plane crash and the hospital, not the orphanage (never the orphanage), but what came after – she listened to. It was a new experience for him, having someone at least pretend to care even if they were just being paid to. Fifteen weeks came and went, and Scott had begrudgingly approached the Professor to ask for more, chafing at the pleased smile that had crossed the man’s face for just an instant.

Things changed at the mansion: Logan came and went and came again, and then Jean, and Scott found he had a friend his own age and a crush he couldn’t get a grip on. The Professor found Alex and Scott almost missed an appointment, too busy crying at finding out his brother was alive – had survived the crash too and was lucky enough to have been adopted – but instead he had something to talk about for the next two months. Logan left again, and then Kurt moved in, and Logan came back, and then the others. The X-Men. Their own weird little family. The Brotherhood moved in across town. Fights became a regular occurrence. The world found out about mutants, and suddenly things got hectic – more hectic – at home, at school, with the X-Men. His schedule flipped on its head constantly, especially after graduation.

Tuesdays, though, stayed sacrosanct.

It was Sunday evening when the Professor told Scott the news, not ten minutes after he’d ended a call from Fred Duncan. Scott listened to everything said, the Professor’s quiet words washing over him, then nodded, calm and in control. A distant ringing slowly grew louder between his ears as he stood up, collected himself, and went about the rest of his night.

Scott could barely focus, his mind stuck in a fog. He turned down Jean when she invited him to watch a movie with her, brushed off Jamie when the kid tried to ask for his usual math help, and then lost his head at Bobby in front of everyone when he turned on the bathroom pipe to wash his hands and it exploded all over him in a barrage of slush and ice. He couldn’t remember what he said – couldn’t even hear himself yelling – but everyone stared at him in shocked disbelief until the shouting died and his energy gave out entirely. He apologized – a brief, “Sorry, I’m…sorry,” he wasn’t sure was audible – and very calmly walked to his room and crashed into bed three hours earlier than usual. He slept like the dead, and if any dreams pierced through the fog that night – any nightmares – he didn’t remember when he woke up.

Monday, Scott woke determined not to let it get to him. There was a tightness in his throat that began when he dropped everyone off at Bayville High – his day for carpool – because an unnatural silence filled the car as everyone heeded him warily. Bobby didn’t say a word to him, but he caught the hurt look in the younger boy’s eyes and his stomach twisted up. The feeling in his throat only grew as he drove to Bayville Community College for his own classes. He ignored it and took his seat.

Scott barely paid attention to what was taught, his pencil still as the point buried into the paper of his notebook, boring a hole into the otherwise empty page. He blinked and class was over. The second class came and went just the same way, and Scott could’ve cried from the sudden surge of relief when he realised it was time to go home. He made it just fine and walked evenly to his room, pacing out each step, one, then another, and another, until the door was locked behind him and he was alone. Scott swallowed down a pill that barely nudged the lump choking him and went to the Danger Room like normal. Things were well under control. This was fine. He was fine.

Logan was waiting outside the door when Scott finally finished – an hour late – with a glare on his face. Scott tried to listen, heard _“—forgot to pick up the damn kids—“_ and didn’t panic. He didn’t say anything at all, not even an apology, which was unusual enough that it stopped Logan before his rant even started. Logan gave him a quick once over through raised brow, shook his head with an annoyed huff, and muttered, “You owe me, kid,” before he headed inside. Scott released the breath he was holding.

He went to dinner with everyone else, smiled when appropriate, brushed off Jean nudging concerned and gentle at his mind, watched Kurt and Rogue fight for the last roll in a way that made him think of Alex when they were kids. He left as soon as his plate was cleared – halfway through the meal, noticeably sooner than normal – and went straight to his room, collapsing into bed. He slept in fits, panic seeping in every time he began to lose consciousness, touching his face to reassure his glasses were still there every time awareness pierced through. He took another pill halfway through the night – he’d never told Xavier about his prescription, just Storm, though he was sure the Professor already knew – and finally managed to fall asleep breathing a bit easier.

Scott woke up and it was Tuesday. He made it out of bed, made it down to the kitchen, made it out of the house, made it all the way to the grocery store. He saw a glimpse of him in the cereal aisle, large and imposing, but jerked around to find no one. He tried to calm his breathing, counted under his breath, knew he was freaking out over nothing. Every movement, every dark shadow, every brief noise caught his attention, caught the glance out of the corner of his eye and made him jump. Scott escaped the store with only half the groceries on his list and barely made it back to the Institute, nearly crashed his car into a tree when he jerked the wheel too hard.

Storm tried to catch his attention when he walked inside. He responded, but to what he couldn’t tell, and then went to unpack the groceries. He pinned the rest of the half-finished list back onto its spot on the fridge when he was done. Scott left the kitchen, passed the cabinet where Logan hid his beer – for a split second was tempted to steal one – and made his way up the stairs. He jumped when a hand touched his shoulder, spun around and nearly pulled his shades off, but it was just Logan.

“The hell’s got you so jumpy?” he asked, voice gruffer and more annoyed than usual, but the response Scott had got stuck at the lump in his throat and progressed no further. He stood there, mouth hanging open slightly, frozen, and Logan frowned. He said something else – something about carpools and Thursday, maybe, in exchange for yesterday – and the ringing was back in Scott’s ears. He nodded along, managed a, “Yeah, sure, okay,” that didn’t sound anything approaching normal – that might not have even been the proper response – but Logan simply turned on his heel and stalked away in the direction of the Professor’s office. Scott continued on to his room and only jumped once at a shifting shadow.

He lost himself in his school work, in the books and the papers and the notes and the math. Someone knocked at his door at one point – Jean with a, “Scott, are you okay?” – but there was one thing on his mind, and he couldn’t face it, couldn’t face her when she’d see it, didn’t even want to talk to the Professor right now, so he called back, “I’m busy,” through the door and a shaky voice and left it at that. The hands on the clock ticked on as he worked, time passing in a blur. One, then two, then three, and he finished his homework and stood up. Everything crashed down on him, and he blinked back the water sitting under his eyelids, suddenly suffocating. He crashed into the safety of his bed, and four passed, then five, and he didn’t move – didn’t even realize.

For the first time in four years, Scott missed his appointment.

~~~

There was a lot Scott couldn’t remember about his childhood. The combination of brain damage and repeated trauma didn’t lend itself well to retaining memories. Most everything before the plane crash was a blank, the occasional flash here and there of his parents, Alex, Alaska. Then the crash, which was both stark and choppy: fire, mostly, and terror and crying and his parents for the last time painted vividly in his mind. Everything after in the hospital was a blur, more knowledge than memory, but he’d been in a coma. Then there was the orphanage, of course, which left him unsettled for reasons he couldn’t pinpoint every time he thought back to it, but he’d run away for a reason even if he couldn’t think as to why. He’d chosen anything over going back – chosen the streets – and had lucked out with the Professor, but before the Institute…there were the things that he wished he couldn’t remember:

Scott’s head slammed through the wall. Chipped plaster rained down onto the floor below, and he bit back the whimper as Jack’s hand fisted in his hair again. Pain radiated from the back of his head and down his side, and he fought down the sudden surge of nausea. His head wouldn’t stop spinning. The low thrum of panic at being effectively blind welled up inside his chest, and he was pleading without realizing it, babbling nonsense to try and appease him before Jack crushed his glasses like he’d threatened.

“Stop,” he begged, voice hitching into a sob, “I d-didn’t, didn’t do any—” A crack sounded as his head hit the wall again, and Scott retched.

“ _’I didn’t do anything,’_ ” Jack mocked, a nasty edge to his words that set Scott’s panic into overdrive. He lashed out, arms and legs colliding with Jack’s solid trunk of a body, but it wasn’t enough to make the man so much as grunt. Jack caught one of Scott’s flailing arms and squeezed, kept squeezing as Scott tried to yank it free from the superhuman grip, squeezed until something snapped. Agony seared through his arm, sudden and intense, and Scott yelled out. His eyes cracked open at the sudden shock. Jack flew across the room, and Scott’s eyes were shut before he heard the crash.

Then: silence.

His harsh breathing broke the stillness, heart pounding in his chest, and Scott stood frozen. The realisation of what he’d done broke through the fog in parts. Tremors came on slowly, and he couldn’t suppress a terrified whimper from breaking through. The nausea churned, threatening to make him vomit for real. Scott still couldn’t make himself move. Jack groaned then, and he flinched at the sound, mind suddenly blanketed with terror.

Scott bolted. He stumbled in the direction of the hallway cradling his broken arm, nearly tripped over furniture he couldn’t see, and crashed into the wall, but he had to get away while he had the chance, get away before—

“Fucking piece of _shit_!” echoed from the room behind him. His stomach dropped. “Best pray I don’t _kill_ you for that, boy!”

God, no. Anyone else would’ve been knocked out at the very least, but Scott didn’t have time to think about that. He still didn’t know the range on Jack’s abilities, didn’t know how far he had to get before he’d be free, and he only had the briefest idea of where he was going, just the general schematic for the building they were squatting in mapped out in his mind. Scott made it through the door and down the stairs, only tripped twice. He couldn’t hear Jack behind him, and that terrified him even more than thundering footsteps would have.

The tingling started in his stomach. “No!” he sobbed, but it was too late. It spread through the rest of him, down his legs, into his fingers, and then there was a sucking that yanked backwards and Scott found himself on his knees. He didn’t need to see to know he was right back where he started – that running was as futile as it’d always been. A foot slammed into his side, and Scott curled up automatically.

“You _attack_ me?!” Jack screamed. “All the shit I’ve done for you – saving you from the cops? Putting you up? Feeding you?” He grabbed Scott’s arm, clasped directly over the broken bone and wrenched him up.

Scott cried out, sobs growing as he choked out a pathetic, “I’m sorry!”

“Then you try to run from me again!” Spittle hit his face as Jack shook him. “You think you can leave whenever the fuck you want? You belong to _me_. I _own_ you!”

Jack dragged him down the hall by his bad arm, and Scott dug his feet in as best he could. The fight was futile before he’d even started. Jack was impossibly, supernaturally strong, and Scott was fifteen and scrawny with barely any muscle on his body.

“I’m sorry,” he begged again, the words tripping over each other in his rush to get them out. “I’m sorry; it was an accident.” Jack wasn’t listening to him, too busy seething with rage. He threw Scott to the ground, and Scott barely had time to feel that before he was kicked in the stomach again and struggling for breath. Then there was silence once more, punctuated only by his harsh gasping.

Something clicked. Metal. A lock, if he had to guess. The sound echoed through the room, and Scott wasn’t pulling in any air, already shaking his head from the knowledge of what came next.

“Don’t—,” he tried, but the too familiar tingle of teleportation was back, and then he was someplace else. Someplace cramped and tiny, a box, really, and he couldn’t stretch out, knew he was trapped until Jack decided to let him out, which could be hours or, given the mood he was in, longer. “No!” he shouted, kicking his foot against the metal trapping him. “Jack, _please_ , I didn’t mean to,” but Jack wasn’t listening, probably wasn’t even in the same room as him anymore. His arm throbbed trapped under his side. He needed a hospital.

Time passed on, and Jack didn’t come back. The air turned warm and stale around him, made it harder to breathe, but that might have just been the panic. He could free himself, Scott knew in the back of his mind. He could just open his eyes, but the possibility left him shuddering. He could get free, could hurt someone in the process because who knew what was around, but more importantly: he could escape this box, but even if he did, he couldn’t escape Jack Winters.

~~~

Wednesday started even worse than Tuesday had ended. Scott barely managed to drag himself out of bed. He groaned when he saw the clock because he’d slept through his alarm – slept through his first class and halfway through his second. He couldn’t quite muster up the energy to care. He stumbled bleary-eyed to the kitchen and rooted around for something to eat, grateful, at least, for the silence the Institute provided during the day, a balm for the spark of a migraine that was growing behind his eyes. The food tasted acrid on his tongue, but he barely noticed.

The Professor’s voice broke loudly through the silence, an, _“Ah, Scott, you’re awake. Could you see me in my office?”_ ringing through his mind. Scott sighed. He peeled himself up out of the kitchen chair and plodded reluctantly in the direction of the Professor’s office. His feet dragged, each step slower than the last, but he made it anyway, didn’t have to knock before he got the familiar, _“Come in,_ ” unusually loud and intrusive in his head.

Scott steeled himself and stepped inside. “You asked to see me, Professor?” he offered, words collected as ever even as the maelstrom inside him leaked like a sieve into the air between them. The pain shooting through his head amplified, but Scott grit his teeth and sat down when directed, whole body stiff in a way he hadn’t been with the Professor in four years. He was still too on edge, too aware that Charles Xavier could read everything – was likely reading everything right now – that here he was exposed in a way that shouldn’t have been setting him off, but right now was just…too…much.

The Professor’s lips twitched downward into a frown, and concern flittered over his face. Scott didn’t meet his eyes, but he knew what was coming, braced himself, and wasn’t surprised when the next thing was: “I couldn’t help but notice you didn’t leave the mansion yesterday evening,” and Scott was blinking back the sudden stinging in his eyes. The Professor continued – his voice suddenly filtered through thick foam – that Jean was worried, and Logan, they’d both come to see him. He’d also heard about the incident with Bobby on Sunday evening – of course – and was himself concerned in light of recent circumstances—

“I’m fine,” he blurted out. “I was busy; schoolwork and…stress…but…they don’t need to worry. I apologized to Bobby. I’m fine, I swear. It’s nothing. I know. I’m freaking out over nothing. I don’t know why this is getting to me,” he continued, babbling out a string of weak reassurances in a word vomit he couldn’t stifle. Every word set his heart ratcheting faster inside him, made breath harder to grasp.

The Professor waited for Scott to finish. A sudden calm settled over him, and Scott sucked in a gulp of cool, refreshing air into his lungs as the swirling vortex inside of him suddenly fell away. His feet were back on solid ground – the Professor’s doing, he knew, but it had him breathing easier so he couldn’t bring himself to mind. Gratitude instead flushed through him, and he offered a weak half-smile in return.

“Scott, it’s alright,” the Professor began, soothing and reassuring in a way that didn’t quite pierce through at the moment. “We’re all simply worried about you, especially given none of the other students are aware of the…circumstances that have changed this week.” _Changing circumstances_ , he said, and Scott might have laughed if that didn’t want to make him hurl. “But it’s not nothing, and you’re allowed to be less than okay.” The words were a pat reassurance. “Jack Winters nearly killed you, to say nothing of what else he did to you—”

“I don’t want to talk about Winters,” Scott cut in, setting his jaw. He couldn’t meet his eyes. The Professor could see right through him anyway, and he sat there now, silent – weighing – and Scott’s forced calm was beginning to evaporate. The Professor wouldn’t push. He _couldn’t_. He knew the situation better than anyone else; he’d saved him almost single-handedly, then given Scott a home and a life and more than he ever could have asked for.

“Very well,” Charles said with a sharp nod. “I understand this is still very raw for you. His escape from prison is…unanticipated, to say the least. When you feel more comfortable – when you’re ready to talk to either myself or your psychiatrist – you need only say. We’re here for you.”

Scott nodded once, sharply.

“I do need to remind you, though,” the Professor added, “that Agent Duncan will be coming by this afternoon to ask some questions, if that’s still acceptable.”

Scott nodded again. Fred Duncan. He could talk to Fred Duncan. He needed to talk to Fred Duncan. He said his goodbyes, stood up, and walked away, aware of the Professor’s concerned eyes boring into him until he stepped out and closed the office door behind him.

The calm dissipated. He bent over, hands on his knees, when the world suddenly swayed around him, tilting him back and forth. He swallowed back the nausea and struggled to pull air in through his nose. His head kept pulsating, and he grit his teeth, squeezed his eyes shut. He was fine. The Professor was wrong: he was freaking out over nothing. He had nothing to worry about. Scott could handle himself.

He wasn’t sure how he made it to his room; the short walk was a blank. He took another of his prescription, waited for the panic to mute and his mind to clear, then went down to the hanger to finish the calibrations he’d been making on the Blackbird. It was hard to focus past the migraine, and he stopped not even a quarter of the way through, unable to continue. He just sat in the pilot seat – his seat – for longer than he had any idea, until finally he pulled off his glasses. He rested them on the console, always careful to keep track, then dropped his head into his hands and cried.

Scott couldn’t stifle the flow once it started. He wailed and sobbed, shaking all over and yanking at his hair, wanting…something, some _one_ , he didn’t know. Jean, maybe? Alex? Jean would hug him, reassure him, but she wasn’t here right now, she was the next city over in class today, and Alex was even farther away. He curled over, choking out another sob. This should’ve been _done_. Over. Jack was on the highest level of lockdown, they’d been reassured. _He was never getting out._

 _‘He wouldn’t have gotten out if he were dead,’_ Scott thought viciously, and then broke down even more, hyperventilating through his tears, because that wasn’t him; that wasn’t the kind of thing he thought or wished on anyone. Even Jack.

“Ah, shit,” he heard – _Logan_ – and then footsteps approached from behind. A hand rested on his shoulder, awkward and reassuring all at once. “You’re okay, kid,” he said, and Scott nodded, already wiping his face off. He tried to reply, but the words came out in an indecipherable blubber. Logan planted two pats in the middle of his back and then stopped, and Scott laughed, wiping his nose clean with the back of his hand.

“I’m…I’m fine,” he managed, the words a strangled, garbled mess, and reached over to grab his glasses. He slid them easily back on his face to hide the last remnants of his tears. “I’m fine.”

That was more convincing the second time. More sure of himself. Logan still made a disbelieving sound in the back of his throat which Scott ignored, choosing instead to stand up, brush Logan off, and walk out. He cleaned his face up in the bathroom, practiced smiling at himself until it only looked half as brittle as he felt. The medicine cabinet next to him caught his eye, cut through the screaming pulsing in his head, and he took two aspirin.

Scott let his feet carry him through the mansion, didn’t pay much attention to where he was going. The silence from the morning was irrevocably shattered by laughter and loud crashes and students running through the halls celebrating the joy of being free for the rest of the day. He winced but swallowed it and the nausea down. The mansion being occupied meant it was after three. Fred Duncan would be arriving soon.

Scott passed the rec room, not sure if he was heading towards the Professor’s office or away from it, and cut in front of the TV where Kitty sat with Lance Alvers watching some sappy day time drama. They looked happy snuggled up on the couch together, and he stopped and stared at them. Another day he’d have broken them apart because there were rules about that sort of thing even if Scott skirted the edge of them with Jean most days, but right now he couldn’t muster up the energy or motivation. Lance snapped something out at him, and he moved on even though he didn’t catch what it was, only heard the growled out, angry, _“Summers—!”_ before he was past them.

Scott didn’t register Lance as much as he registered the tone – his body stiffening instantly at the implied threat – and the hulking steps behind him. A low rumbling started through the room, and someone – Kitty – was shouting at both of them, but Scott could only feel the panic suddenly in his throat. He swung around and registered the split second of surprise on Alvers’s face when he shoved his glasses up, and the other boy was hit full on with Scott’s sight and sent hurtling through the rec room wall.

Someone was screaming at him, louder now – Kitty still, he realised as he pushed his glasses back over his eyes. A dim horror settled into his chest.

“Like what the hell, Scott?!” she shouted as she ran to her boyfriend. Lance lay sprawled out in the hall unmoving. Scott was going to throw up. “Lance? Lance, are you okay?” She shot a glare back at Scott. “What the hell is your damage? God, _Lance!_ ”

Scott shook his head. “I—,” he tried but then failed, words disappearing from him again. People were gathering around them now, crowding in to check on Lance. Lance, who still wasn’t moving. Storm was there, too, and Scott didn’t know when she had arrived, but she directed the other students around and away and said something to Kitty who sunk down through the floor with Lance but not before she levelled a glare not half as destructive as Scott’s own over her shoulder at him.

He stumbled away and blinked back the water gathering in the corner of his eyes, wishing even more desperately that Jean were here, but she wasn’t due back for at least three hours. He wasn’t going to cry in front of people, and there were a lot more people now, all pushing past him to see the commotion in the rec room. Rogue tried to stop him as he shoved past, and then Kurt, both with concerned looks on their faces. He couldn’t handle that.

Scott escaped the house and sequestered himself in the backyard out near the pool where he wouldn’t be bothered. No one would look for him out here; it was late fall and a deep chill sat in the air. Despite the lack of coat, it didn’t bother him. The cold was a blanket of comfort and familiarity, one that worked to ground him as he shivered slightly in the breeze. Home, it felt like. Alaska. Things with his family, things before…all of this. _Jack_.

Scott sat there until he was shivering and then sat longer. The Professor’s voice pierced his mind again, asking to see him, and Scott walked back inside, grateful at least that his headache was finally easing. He walked past the damaged rec room and tried not to linger on the guilt churning in his gut, on whether Lance was alright. He ignored the suddenly hushed whispers of gossip from all the other students he passed, the words stuck somewhere between, _“Scott went_ off _on Lance earlier; it was badass,”_ and, “ _Omg, did you hear? Some FBI guy is here! I heard for Scott,”_ but they were all talking about him. He half expected to hear a grunt from Logan, a _“Yeah, caught him cryin’ in the Blackbird today,”_ but Logan didn’t gossip and was standing in the office next to the Professor and Storm when Scott arrived.

Across from the Professor sat Fred Duncan who turned at the sound of the door. The man smiled. He looked exactly the same as he had four years ago. Scott nearly turned around and walked out.

Agent Duncan stood up out of his seat. “Scott,” he greeted warmly. He held out a hand, and Scott found himself taking it automatically. “It’s good to see you, son; you’re looking…much better than last time.” Funny. _Last time_ had been in the hospital still, recovering from surgery but miraculously alive. There had been questions – too many questions – that Scott had been too out of it to answer: What Jack’s goal was. Who Jack worked with. Why the hell Jack and Scott had been in a _nuclear plant_.

There’d been the Professor, too, next to his bedside – a stranger still – reassuring Scott that he was in no trouble. Scott had his doubts as to how true that was versus how true the Professor had made it. He’d been in trouble before Jack, after all, with gross amounts of destruction of public property under his belt. He’d been in even more trouble after. The FBI weren’t the type to just overlook that, not given his powers, even if he had been beaten most of the way to death by his piece of shit foster father.

Well, Fred Duncan was the type which was likely why the Professor still trusted him.

They sat, then, Scott and Fred Duncan and Storm – Logan chose to stand as always – and the agent launched into a prepared spiel, a litany of apologies, questions about Jack’s M.O. that Scott barely answered, tossing his hair back and forth over the top of his head as he continued. Scott watched him move it, back and forth and back and forth and back and—

The Professor nudged at his mind, a gentle reminder to pay attention.

“—shouldn’t know where you are,” Fred Duncan was saying to him, he realised, although he wasn’t sure why that was relevant until the agent said to the group, “but…we do also have reason to believe he might be planning to come after you.” A sensation settled into his chest that Scott couldn’t recognise, not at first. The more Fred Duncan spoke, the more it sunk in until he realised: it was nothing. He was numb past the point of caring, so he nodded, in that instant unbothered by the prospect of his current waking nightmare becoming reality.

Logan said something in response, a growl and a threat and his claws were out, and then Storm chimed in. They spoke over each other with the occasional interjection from the Professor – the occasional input from Fred Duncan – and all tossed concerned looks at him as they debated the situation.

“How did he escape?” Scott asked suddenly, voicing what had been pressing most at his mind since he’d heard the news, and the rest of the room fell silent.

Fred Duncan’s silence seemed heavier than the rest, and he rubbed a hand over his eyes. “…A prison guard,” he admitted. “Name of Milbury, at least according to his uniform, walked right up and freed him. ‘Cept there’s no Milbury of any kind on the roster or among Winters’s known former associates.” The name tickled something in the back of Scott’s head, deeper than conscious thought, which is why it was easy to brush it off. He nodded again.

“We’ll find him soon, son,” the agent continued, and then turned to the Professor and Scott heard the old man say, “ _Cerebro_ ,” but he wasn’t listening anymore. He stood up and walked out, and they all turned in surprise as the door slammed shut behind him.

Scott found Kitty when he went to the kitchen, and the girl glared at him before turning away with a huff. He asked how Lance was, and the words came easier than he thought they would. Rogue answered instead, doing her best to hide the worry on her face, but it tinged her voice as she said, “He’s fine. It looked way worse than it was. Couple’a broken ribs, but he’s had worse. What about you? Are you okay?” and then Kitty shushed her with an angry, “Don’t, like… _sympathise_ with him! You could’ve killed him!” Rogue rolled her eyes, but Scott was moving on already, guilt still churning in his stomach because she was right. His careful control was fraying, had been for days. He grabbed the first thing he could find to eat out of the cupboard and retreated.

“Scott?” he heard, out loud and in his mind as he opened his bedroom door. He turned and almost sagged as tension bled from his body. Jean. He stepped into his room and she followed, shutting the door behind her. Against the rules, they both knew, but the Professor would make an exception in this case. Jean’s arms wrapped around him, squeezing tight and reassuring, and he hugged her back, clinging on with a desperation he didn’t recognise in himself. Tears were gathering in his eyes as the full weight of the day crashed in on him.

“The Professor told me some of what’s going on,” she said softly, and he nodded numbly into her shoulder. She knew about Jack some. Not most. Not nearly all. But some. Enough. “So just…whatever you need. Okay?”

“I can’t—,” he squeezed out, but couldn’t what, he didn’t know. Do this? Keep it together? Jean rubbed her hand up and down his spine, and Scott broke down in her arms as she whispered, _“It’s okay_ ,” into his mind, remaining a steady blanket of comfort around him, holding him until he fell asleep.

Scott woke on Thursday alone and with a whimper, paralysed by the onslaught of nightmares still dancing through his head. He dried cheeks still wet with tears and buried the feeling of bones cracking under an impossible grip in the deepest pit of his mind. He avoided the kitchen entirely, opting to skip his morning meal rather than deal with the overwhelming bustle of everyone eating breakfast before school, rather than deal with all the questions and the staring and every mutant in this place being too curious for their own good.

He made it to class on time that day, managed to pay attention to the whole class and fill his page with notes, even raised a hand and asked a question. Halfway through his next class, he saw a shadow in the window and jerked his head around to clear blue skies and an empty quad. He turned back, doing his damnedest to focus on the lesson again, but he could feel the prickling on the back of his neck like someone was there. Scott shoved his books and notes into his bag in a rush and ran out of class half an hour before the end, barely mumbling out _, “Sick,”_ as he dashed past his professor.

Scott saw something move as he entered the parking lot, and his hands were already on his shades, but when he looked again, nothing was there. He stood next to his car, trembling, and matched his breathing to the metronome in his head until he was calm again. Overreacting, Scott reminded himself. He was overreacting. Jack had no way of knowing where he was. Fred Duncan had assured them of that.

 _‘Fred Duncan also assured us Jack was never getting out,’_ rose unbidden inside. He ignored it, repressed it, and drove himself home, making sure to go slow so as not to have a repeat of the near miss of Tuesday.

Jean found him in the backyard sitting out near the pool. “How are you doing?” she asked. What she didn’t say was, _‘You’re back early,’_ which Scott appreciated. He couldn’t even make it through two classes without verging on a meltdown and nothing about that felt like Cyclops, leader of the X-Men. He returned a, _‘Been better,’_ through his thoughts as she sat down next to him. Jean faltered then, communicating with neither word nor thought, merely laced their fingers together, and Scott had a distant feeling that he wasn’t going to like what she said next. He was right.

“I saw your nightmares last night.”          

“That can’t have been fun for you.” More blithe and glib than could ever pass for casual for him.

“ _Scott_ ,” she chided lightly, but her lips quirked into a ghost of a smile that quickly fell back away. “Do you want to…talk?”

He squeezed his hand around hers and said, “No.” Jean, because she knew him well, let it pass. They laid out on the grass staring up at the sky and enjoying the silence until she launched into a story about the guy who’d been kicked out of her chemistry lab yesterday, and Scott let her voice wash over him, laughed when it was appropriate, and tried to put Jack Winters out of his mind for five minutes.

“I ran away,” he said suddenly, cutting her off halfway through her mental projection of the chemistry professor’s purple face and creative word usage. “From the orphanage.”

“Yeah, you’ve said,” she replied. He’d never said why, though, but that was an answer he still didn’t even have for himself.

“Jack found me when I was running from the cops. I’d accidentally ‘attacked’ one of them when they pulled my shades off unexpectedly.”

“He found you?” she asked. “I thought he was your foster father.”

Scott didn’t answer immediately. He let the silence stretch out between them until, finally, he sighed and answered stiltedly, “Kind of.” And then, after another pause, “Maybe. He was…is…a really…low-level telepath.” It was nothing like Jean or the Professor’s all-encompassing abilities, but it was enough to keep Scott from running when teleportation didn’t cut it. “I think he was…looking for another mutant. Using his…his telepathy to pull any of us in so he could…get what he got from me.”

Jean pushed herself up to her elbow. “You don’t have to talk about this if you don’t want to,” she said, but Scott wasn’t listening anymore. He stared up into the red expanse above him as memories he’d shoved down for years flittered unguarded in and out of his mind for Jean to see. Robberies and beatings and hospital visits and more robberies. The same trapped helplessness that had consumed him for most of his childhood but in a different, more violent situation.

“He was the first other mutant I’d ever met.” His voice stayed dull. “I barely even knew what I was, Jean. And he…” Jean with her two loving parents and happy family could only empathise with most of his life through what her powers let her feel, but she could understand – they all could understand – the sudden surge of relief at meeting someone else _different_ like them for the first time. “He still didn’t see me as anything more than my powers.”

Jack had been proud of his new “secret weapon”, and that had disgusted Scott then almost as much as it disgusted him now.

“I didn’t want to do any of the things he made me,” Scott confessed. _‘But I didn’t want him to kill me.’_ What he wanted hadn’t mattered either way, but at least he was still alive.

Jean squeezed his hand lightly. “You remember when I first moved to the Institute?”

Scott blinked at the sudden change of topic and turned his head to look at her. A brief smile stretched across his lips as he thought back to the instant crush he’d had upon seeing her and Logan’s light but constant ribbing at the complete fool he was making out of himself. “Yeah. Of course.”

“Not that,” she corrected, laughing at his memory. “When you told me the Professor saved you from a bad situation…”

“Not what you imagined.” Not what anyone here would imagine, he knew, because Scott had worked hard to cultivate himself into exactly who he wanted to be after… _after_.

“You did a good job of that then,” she said in response to his thought. “Scott Summers, you’re the best person I know.”

Scott smiled weakly at her, but she knew he didn’t believe her. He sat up and pulled his hand free from hers to wrap arms around his knees. “I didn’t have to think about him because he was in prison. It was in the past. Now…” Scott couldn’t bring himself to repeat what Fred Duncan had stated the day before because the possibility of Jack anywhere near Bayville was a circuit built to short out his mind. “It’s like he’s everywhere,” he admitted instead, voice trembling. “I see him everywhere I turn, and I—” He overreacted; he left class early; he full-on blasted Lance.

Jean hugged him.

“You’re not fifteen anymore,” she said. Her chin stayed resting on his shoulder. “You’re not alone, either: you have all of us. And you know how to protect yourself now.”

 _Not from Jack_ , he didn’t say. Scott shook his head and stood up, but a deep, unsettled feeling sat even more obtrusively in his chest. It was pat reassurance even if she believed what she was saying. Jean didn’t understand. How could she? She hadn’t struggled like he had, had moved here straight from _home_ , couldn’t know what it felt like to have someone scream, _“I own you,”_ so many times that it started to feel true, felt stamped onto his soul, he thought bitterly, and resentment suddenly threatened to choke him.

Scott shoved away from her and stormed back into the mansion, ignoring the way she called out behind him and the knocks at his bedroom door after he slammed it shut. He slumped down onto the ground and didn’t cry – he _didn’t_ , even if his eyes were wet and the room around him turned blurry. Alex wouldn’t understand, either. He’d lucked out, remained _undamaged_ and gotten adopted. The only guy who’d been interested in a brain damaged kid hadn’t wanted a kid, he’d just wanted a tool. And gotten it.

Jean stopped knocking soon. Scott wiped his face off and headed down to the sub-basement. It took twice as long to get there as normal as he’d had to change direction five times to avoid running into Logan and three more times to avoid running into anyone else. He changed into his uniform mechanically and then entered the danger room.

The program Scott picked wasn’t new. It had been there since the beginning, since he’d first figured out how to code this thing, but he hadn’t touched it until now. The familiar sight of the nuclear plant shimmered to life and suffocated him until he remembered to breathe – reminded himself this wasn’t real.

Jack was smaller than he remembered. It made sense in hindsight given Scott’s numerous growth spurts, but he still loomed tall and imposing and deadly in Scott’s memories. He was still just as impossible to beat. Impervious to harm, impossibly strong, and Scott found himself tossed back and forth across the floor and into walls, freezing up at inconvenient times when the voice on the fake, fake, _fake_ duplicate rose too loud and he flinched.

Scott considered stopping. He knew, somewhere deep inside of him, that he should, but no. He had to keep trying. Trying and _failing_ because even the facsimile was too much for Scott to stop, and on his knees with the looming spectre of Jack over him, shaking and barely breathing, Scott finally called out an end to the program.

He stumbled to the locker room and changed back into his regular clothes. It took every effort not to berate himself for his terrible performance. The sharp pain of a bruised jaw and aching body was punishment enough. It didn’t matter; he’d never had any hope of beating the man. If Jack did show…

 _‘Shouldn’t know where you are,’_ Scott reminded himself, that’s what Fred Duncan had said, but...should wasn’t very reassuring and, _‘He’s never getting out of prison,’_ was something else he’d heard before. He walked out of the locker room to find Logan waiting for him, and the man jabbed a finger harshly into his chest.

“You been avoiding me?” Logan growled, and Scott frowned as he wondered what this was about. “You’re supposed to be driving Stripes to her meetin’ this afternoon. Remember? For my picking up your slack on Monday.”

Scott didn’t remember. He also didn’t want to leave. Jack could be anywhere out there, lying in wait and ready to pounce. Still, Logan wouldn’t force him to leave the mansion if he didn’t think it was safe. It _was_ safe. He was overreacting. Scott nodded, and Logan left him alone with a satisfied grunt. He found Rogue dressed nicer than usual and waiting expectantly in the foyer and apologised stiffly for the delay, ignoring her curious looks at the red bruise forming on his face and the slightly stiffer than usual way he was walking.

The ride was long – a university visit the next town over, she had reminded him as they got into the car – and they rode half of it in silence until Rogue suddenly started talking.

“Kitty knows you didn’t mean to hurt Lance. And she knows Lance was about to pick a fight and probably deserved to get his ass handed to him like that, anyway,” she said. Scott’s hands tightened on the wheel. “I think it just kinda…took all’a us by surprise.”

“It’s been a long week,” he muttered by way of explanation. She snorted an undignified laugh. “How’s yours been?”

 _Decent_ , Rogue replied, and then the usually taciturn girl drawled out a brief summary of her week’s events, recognising the distraction he was asking for in the moment and giving him something to focus on that wasn’t Jack. School was as annoying as usual, it seemed, though she was back involved with this year’s play. He’d known that, but he hadn’t realised they were doing Sleeping Beauty, which Rogue had objected to on the principle of fairy tales being dumb. She also apparently hadn’t heard from Gambit in weeks, he’d dropped off the face of the planet, and—

“You talk to that guy?” Scott asked.

“What of it?” she snapped. “He’s easy to talk to. We bonded. Not that it’s any of _Logan’s_ business, ugh, you’d think he was like my dad or something! Not like it matters none. Swamp Rat doesn’t even have the decency to text me back, anyway.”

Scott rolled his eyes. “Everything’s Logan’s business,” he said, and Rogue cracked a smile. He couldn’t quite bring himself to smile back. Rogue had the decency not to comment and instead flicked the radio on, letting the music carry them the rest of the drive to the university. He stayed in the car when she went in, leaving the engine running as he waited for her to get back. He locked the doors then double-checked them. He refrained from triple-checking and instead pulled his phone out to shoot a quick apology text to Jean and then another to Kitty given he chose not to keep Lance’s number.

His phone buzzed minutes later, and then buzzed again shortly after. Jean said: _There’s nothing to apologize for._ Kitty said: _lance has kinda had it coming,_ and immediately after: _sry to for like wigin out like that._ It buzzed a fourth time and then more, and that was all Kurt sending a bunch of dumb Trek memes that got him to laugh.

Something crashed in the distance, and Scott jumped and whirled around, scanning the expanse of the parking lot and open campus around him through wary eyes. His heart thundered in his ears. He leaned back into the seat, but any calm that had begun to settle over him was gone, dissipated into a low level frenzy. Fingers tapped impatiently against the wheel as the minutes ticked onward. Scott understood now why Logan had been so eager to foist this off onto him; he hadn’t thought a college interview would last this long.

Finally, though – _finally_ – he saw Rogue exit the administration building and head back towards the car with a pleased look on her face. He tried to smile back but didn’t quite make it. There was too much tension crawling under his skin, so even as Rogue stepped into the car and announced things had gone well, he had the engine on, and pulled out immediately. Rogue opened her mouth to comment, reconsidered, then closed it and turned the music up louder.

They drove back to Bayville like that, and Scott didn’t have to think about Jack when he was driving, could keep his entire focus on the road. It wasn’t that long of a trip – upwards of about an hour – and soon they were back in their hometown, almost back to the Institute, driving past the high school, past the library, past the mall—

“Shit, I need to stop at the craft store!” Rogue remembered suddenly. “I got put on stupid prop duty; do you mind?”

Scott wanted to say no. The mall was too open with too many people, too hard to protect themselves, but that was fear. Things were safe here, they had to be, and, _‘shouldn’t know where you are,_ ’ he repeated again and again, a steady mantra in his mind as he pulled into a parking spot.

God, but he was better than this.

Scott shifted the car into park and deliberately got out with Rogue, didn’t stay in the car this time. They walked across the lot and into the mall, and Rogue started talking again, filling the silence he didn’t want to focus on with more inane chatter, explaining what she was looking for in more detail, complaining about the play, complaining about Kitty, complaining some more about Gambit. Scott only half paid attention. He scanned the crowds around them, examining every face, saw Tabitha out with Jubilee – made a mental note to remind Jubilee of the _rules_ to try and offset Tabitha’s whole influence – saw old schoolmates, even passed by Duncan Matthews without a word. They reached the Food Court, and Scott eased up on the examination, let the faces around him fade into obscured background noise and tuned back in to what Rogue was saying.

“—been wantin’ to talk about Mystique lately,” he heard, and Scott assumed he’d missed the context that said she was talking about Kurt. He could understand Kurt’s desire to learn more about the mother he barely knew from the sister who’d been raised by her.

“He mentioned it t—” Scott cut himself off abruptly. He glanced back to the wall at the edge of the food court, the empty wall, there was no one there. He’d thought he’d seen someone – thought he’d seen _him_ – but there was no Jack; he wasn’t here and he wasn’t going to be here. Scott shook his head and did his best to keep from hyperventilating. He peeled away from Rogue and choked out a, “Bathroom,” gesturing at her to keep going to her store as he stumbled away.

The bathroom was blessedly empty when he entered. Scott turned on the water and rested his shades on the counter. He splashed water on his face and then stood there leaning against the counter, trying to bring himself back under control. His harsh breathing filled his ears, and Scott swallowed down the lump in his throat and cursed himself for not having the foresight to bring his prescription.

“Scott?” he heard Rogue call from the bathroom entrance. “Y’alright in there?” He hadn’t wanted her to follow him. For as much as she stayed pretending not to care, Rogue cared entirely too damn much all the time.

“Yeah,” he called back. “Just give me a second.” Scott wiped his face off with his shirt and collected his breathing, chiding himself over and over that it was just the mall, he wasn’t going to have a panic attack over coming to the mall. He pulled his shades back on and stared at himself in the mirror until Rogue called again, the note in her voice threatening that she would walk in any second, boys’ bathroom or not. He rubbed his eyes one more time, steeled himself, and finally turned around to leave.

 “Hey, kid,” Jack greeted. The nasty grin on his face was wide and vicious and too, too familiar. Scott froze. Jack stood imposing between Scott and the doorway and – no, this couldn’t be real, he thought desperately. His mind didn’t play tricks like this, though, couldn’t dream Jack up in this much detail – wouldn’t imagine Jack _shorter_ than him – and he couldn’t think or breathe amidst the sudden white wash of pure panic in his mind. The noise Scott made was strangled terror, and he shook his head as he stepped back. Jack stepped forward. “Miss me?”

“N- _no_ ,” he gasped out, denial and an answer rolled up into one because this…this wasn’t happening. It couldn’t be. He stepped back again and his back hit the wall. “You can’t—“ A diamond-hard fist slammed into the wall next to his head, shattering the tiles. Scott flinched.

“Can’t _what_?” Jack sneered. The only reply he got was Scott’s panicked breathing. Jack scoffed, unsurprised. “No answer? ‘Course not.” How was he in Bayville? How did he know Scott was in Bayville? How was he at the _mall_? Jack punched the wall again. “You put me in _prison,_ boy.”

Words were lost to him entirely. Scott could only shake his head, couldn’t even pull his eyes away, didn’t even see how he could make a run for it. Footsteps caught his ears, growing louder and closer, a familiar booted tread.

“Scott?” Rogue called, walking into the bathroom, “You sure you’re—“ Jack turned around to look, and Scott swept into motion, shoving his glasses up off his face and putting every bit of concentration into shoving raw power straight into Jack. The man went flying back, crashed through the wall and kept going, and Scott didn’t wait. He dashed for the bathroom exit, grabbing Rogue’s arm as he went and shouting, “ _Run!_ ” at her.

“What the hell is going on?” she shouted as they pushed through the gathering crowd. “Who was that? Why’re we runnin’?”

Scott ducked around a corner and pulled Rogue back against the wall next to him. “Shit,” he breathed out. “Shit, shit, _shit, shit, shit_ ,” and cursing out loud was so unlike him that Rogue was staring at him like he’d lost all his screws. He pulled his car keys out of his pocket and shoved them into her unsuspecting hand.

“Scott—”

“If-if we get separated, or something happens to me, take the car and go,” he rushed out. “Don’t wait for me or try and save me. Just get back to the Institute; the Professor…” he trailed off, voice tight, but Scott wasn’t going to cry. Not right now.

“No; I ain’t ditching you like that.”

“I’m serious!” he snapped. Rogue’s head jerked back and her mouth gaped as she processed the sudden anger in his tone. “That _won’t_ keep him down!” His head swivelled back and forth, making sure Jack didn’t appear anywhere in their line of sight. And then, softer, “Just listen to me on this. _Please_.” Then Scott was dragging her with him down the corridor again, in the opposite direction of the parking garage. It was too easy a place to get cornered and too obvious a place to look. He pulled out his phone with his free hand.

“Just tell me what the hell is going on!” Rogue demanded. “Who the hell was that?”

“My,” he began, but then cut himself off. Jack wasn’t his anything; Jack was nothing to him. “Someone – someone dangerous,” he answered instead, trying to dial the Institute on his cell as he ran. They were almost to the exit doors now. The air in front of them fizzed, and then displaced, and Jack was _there_. Scott scrambled backwards, losing his grip on Rogue in his desperation. His phone clattered to the ground then was lost to a loud _‘crunch!’_ as Jack’s foot appeared right on top of it.

A hand clamped down over Scott’s face, pinning his glasses in place when Jack slammed his head into the solid wall. Black spots danced across his eyes, and he was left drifting somewhere between dazed and terrified. People were running scared around them, and the screams went straight to his pulsing head. The sirens in the distance also did nothing to help, but all Scott could focus on was Jack’s hand tightening over his head.

“How’d you think this was gonna go, boy?” Jack asked. “You know that fucking eye shit of yours _hurts_.” The way he said that promised hurt back in equal measure plus interest. Scott closed his eyes, could almost pretend this wasn’t happening, but the sharp pain of fingers digging into his face reminded him otherwise. He opened his eyes again and kicked out, raised his hands to try and peel the man’s hand away. Jack just laughed.

Behind him, Scott could see Rogue battling her way through the fleeing, terrified crowds towards them, one hand bare. No, damn it! This was the opposite of what he’d just told her to do. He wanted to warn her away, opened his mouth to shout at her, but glanced back to Jack’s frothing, angry face and realised he couldn’t mess up her chance. Jack shook him, and Scott’s head hit the wall again.

“Well?” the man demanded. Scott couldn’t focus enough to answer. The world was spinning underneath his feet, and Rogue was almost to them, hand extended to put Jack down.

She stopped, then, and her eyes went wide, managed a, “What the f—?” that cut off when she vanished. Scott sobbed and punched the wall in frustration, kicked up his struggles to free himself.

“Really thought you could pull one over on me again,” Jack snarled when Scott had tired himself out. It would be easy for him to crush Scott’s head in, they both knew. Not as easy as it was for the Juggernaut who he’d faced down without flinching, but here, with Jack, he was paralysed.

“You don’t have to – please don’t,” he managed, the words slurring together as the spots in his eyes grew. He was holding onto consciousness by only the barest thread now.

“Don’t what? Kill you? Nah. You and me, boy – we got some unfinished business.” The sirens were louder now, and the area around them had long since cleared out. “Time we took our leave, too, I reckon.”

The still-remembered tingle of Jack’s teleportation powers started in his stomach, and Scott barely had time for the whimper that elicited before he and the last bit of his consciousness was yanked away.

~~~

The first time Scott met Charles Xavier wasn’t truly the first time they met. Scott didn’t realise that for the first few weeks after moving into the Institute. When the initial wash of trauma began clearing from his mind and the memories started to filter back in, Scott put together a pattern he hadn’t realised before: Charles Xavier existing in the background of his life in the final days of lead up. Once, outside of a grocery store, he’d even tried to slow Scott, get his attention to talk, but Scott had been in a rush to get back before Jack decided he’d been dawdling and got nasty. He’d had no idea that the man was looking for him, that he’d been searching for months, since the accident with his powers back in D.C. No idea that the weird bald man in the wheelchair had the power to save him. How could he?

Charles Xavier was not, at that time, the kind of man who stood out sharply in Scott’s mind. That came later:

“The wall,” Jack directed, shoving Scott’s back for emphasis. Tonight was different from their usual string of bank robberies and burglaries. He’d been unsettled and shaky since Jack had unveiled has plan last week, marked their target down as another nuclear reactor – the third one they were going for. Scott still didn’t understand what they were doing, but he’d pinpointed why the first time: Jack had emerged stronger, more powerful, and filled with a glee that thinned Scott’s hopes of ever running away into a thin, quickly fraying string.

“Now,” Jack snapped when he took too long to respond. Breaking in was rote at this point, and Scott pushed his glasses up through shaking hands to let his eyes make short work of the walls and barriers in their way. Jack liked to deal with the guards himself. It was both a blessing and a curse that left Scott scrambling to try and cave in enough debris to block them off so they wouldn’t get hurt. Not much he could really do to counter Jack, but he would mitigate any extra damage that he could.

“That’s good, kid,” Jack said when they were in, and this time the slap to his back was enthusiastic, riding high on the adrenaline of the job.

The reactor was strangely desolate, and the amount of guards they took out seemed thinner than usual. They made it to the office with ease, and Scott stood back against the wall as Jack went to work on the system. He’d be ignored as long as he kept quiet, and it was easier to blank out his mind than wallow in the guilt and helplessness, than to recognise the churning frustration in his gut every time he thought too hard about where he was and what he was doing.

Scott didn’t notice the footsteps, not at first. Not until they were right on top of them, and the security guard stepped through the door, gun drawn and shouting, “Stop right there! Hands up! Both of you!”

Relief washed through him as he raised his arms. He had to blink back the sudden flow of tears threatening to bubble over, and that made him want to laugh – the thought of being arrested was a relief because it’d get him away from Jack. He bit down on his lip to stop either from escaping and closed his eyes as he waited to be arrested.

“I’m serious!” the guard continued a second later, “Hands up now!” and Scott could still hear the _clack-clack-clack_ of the keyboard behind him.

 _‘Maybe he’ll shoot him,’_ he thought, which could be good or bad depending on how immune to bullets Jack was. He’d been shot before, but that had been back before when they were just robbing banks, before the first reactor making him harder and stronger and more impossible than before.

“What the hell are you waiting for?” The irritation in Jack’s voice permeated the air, twisting into a tightening noose around Scott’s neck that left his throat dry. “Waste this fucking Rent-A-Cop, kid.”

Scott opened his eyes, stared uncomprehendingly at the security guard in front, chanced a glance back over his shoulder at Jack, then croaked out a barely audible, “I – what?” that was all he could manage. Jack’s hands stilled on the keyboard, and he turned to face Scott. Scott squeezed his clammy hands into fists and opened them again, shaking under the heavy weight of Jack’s glare.

“You heard me, boy.”    

“One more move, and I’ll shoot!” the guard cut in, stepping closer. Scott cut his eyes to him, and then back to Jack, paralysed by the sudden deviation from script. He didn’t want to hurt anyone. Jack had never tried to make him hurt anyone before. Taking out walls and vehicles and weapons was one thing, but…

Scott didn’t know what he said until the word was out of his mouth, but the taste of his soft, “No,” sat on his lips, sweat and fear and determination he didn’t know he still had. And then, louder and even shakier, he repeated, “No, I – I can’t.”

Jack’s silence was all Scott could hear. He couldn’t make out what the guard was shouting anymore; his whole focus was pinpointed on the promise of retribution gleaming out of eyes flashing with rage. He shook his head. “I _won’t_.”

Jack turned fully. Scott couldn’t breathe. There was a sharp pain in his chest, amplifying with each pounding beat of his heart, and neither Scott nor the guard had time to react – the guard didn’t even know what to prepare for as he was suddenly on the opposite side of the room. He was down on the floor with one blow that made Scott flinch, barely conscious, and the only sound left in the room was his pained groans. Then Jack was facing Scott and the guard was forgotten. Scott stepped back, tried to keep himself from crying because that would help him even less than distance would.

“…You just tell me no?” Jack’s words were ice creeping up Scott’s spine, freezing his voice out of him, making him tremble, and he took another step back. “Get here.” He jabbed one finger down towards the ground in front of him. Scott’s eyes were blown wide behind his glasses, and he shook his head even as he took a half step forward. _“Now!”_ Jack roared, and Scott was across the room of his own volition, head ducked down, and tears leaking silently down his face. Apologies crossed his mind, but he didn’t bother with them. It was too late either way, although more importantly: Scott wasn’t sorry for that. He would not let Jack Winters turn him into a killer.

The punch that toppled him over wasn’t a surprise. He crashed into the concrete floor and tried to curl up, but Jack grabbed his arm, wrenching him back to his feet. “I tell you to jump, you _jump_ , boy. Though I guess it’s time you had another lesson about who’s in charge here!” Scott flinched back from the spit flying into his face. A diamond hand twisted in his hair, yanking his head around until he was forced to look at the barely conscious guard on the floor in front of him. “You turn this fucking guard into a smear on the ground, or I do it to _you_!”

The guard was more alert now, staring up at Scott, and he looked as terrified as Scott felt. His mouth was open, forming words – _“Please, no,”_ Scott made out under the rush of blood through his ears, made out under the sound of Jack’s laughter overwhelming everything.

Scott jabbed back with his elbow, hit a solid mass that didn’t flinch, and twisted in Jack’s grip. “No!” he shouted. “I won’t. I won’t do th—!” He was cut off with a gurgle. Jack let go of his hair and clamped a hand around his neck. Scott couldn’t breathe, panicked, kicked, punched at Jack as he choked and couldn’t make out much of the rant screamed at him, the “You do what I say!” and the familiar refrain of, “I own you!” and a million other things impossible to process above the singular, terrifying realisation: Jack was going to kill him. His chest was on fire, and Scott’s struggling grew more desperate as spots began to filter into his eyes. His arms grew heavier and heavier until he was barely pawing at the man, unable to fight back anymore.

And then Jack let go of him, and Scott collapsed to the ground gasping for air, heaving between hacking coughs. Jack pointed at the guard. “Last chance, boy.”

Scott had half a second to wonder where he’d end after this: some place bad for all the shit Jack had forced him to do, or with his family – mom, dad, and Alex – because not letting Jack turn him into a murderer was enough to make up for everything else. He glared mulishly up at Jack, defiance and acceptance set into the tilt of his lips, and said, “No.”

Too strong fists slammed into him instantly. Scott tried to protect himself as best he could against the onslaught, and Jack kicked him instead, yanked him up to punch him back down and kept going, beating him in an unrelenting frenzy, threw him into a wall and then dragged him back to kick him some more. Scott whimpered and cried, begged Jack to stop and got something in his chest snapped as reward.

A gun shot rang out. Jack dropped Scott back onto the ground, and he curled up, cracking an eye open to see the guard sitting up, gun smoking. “Back – back away from the kid,” he tried. Jack cackled, his head thrown back in full body laughter. He nudged at Scott with his foot. Scott whimpered, curled up together and coughed, choking on blood bubbling up in the back of his throat.

“Gonna try ’n’ shoot me again?” The guard did just that. Jack tossed it off, and then glared. “Should try shooting yourself instead.” The gun turned. Scott closed his eyes before the gun went off again, sobbing quietly into the ground. “Wish you were that simple to control,” Jack said. He yanked Scott back up off the ground. “This would be easier,” hit him again, “for both of us,” and again. Scott drifted away as it all began to bleed together, just did his best to protect his head for all the good that did him, and prayed that it would be over soon.

“That’s quite enough of that,” he heard then, out loud and inside his head, cool, crisp, collected, and cutting straight through the violence. Everything stopped. Scott cracked a wary eye open to see Jack staring down at him, one fist frozen mid-strike, and the look on his face stuck halfway between confusion and rage. Wheels squeaked along a smooth floor and rolled into view.

 _‘Oh, god,’_ Scott thought, then, _‘Jack’s gonna kill him, too,’_ and he wasn’t sure if it was his imagination – a hallucination brought on by blood loss – when he heard, _‘No, trust me. He won’t. My name is Charles Xavier. I’m here to help you,’_ because nothing about that made sense.

“They got cripples working security now, too?” Jack sneered. He wiped his face with the back of his arm, fist dripping with blood – Scott’s blood. _‘S’a lot of it.’_

“I will not let you lay another hand on this child,” Scott heard. The words were distant. Consciousness was a battle he was quickly losing.

“You’d do well to leave before I do you worse.” Jack paused, then added, “Worse than you already are.”

The man – Charles? – frowned, his eyes narrowed in concentration, and Jack jerked away from Scott, stumbled back then dropped to one knee. Scott didn’t have it in him to feel relief; everything hurt too badly. Jack snarled, angry like he was responding to something, and then snapped out, “Think you can put me down like that?” He pushed himself back up to his feet, a triumphant gleam in his eyes. Charles looked surprised – taken off-guard – and Scott could only guess at what was happening. Jack stepped towards the man, and Scott didn’t think – couldn’t, at this point – and his shoulder screamed as he inched his arm up. He knocked his glasses off his face, didn’t hear them clatter to the ground as he pushed everything he had left into it. The blast was still weak, but it was enough to knock Jack on his ass and send him crashing into the wall.

“Scott?” he heard then, right above him and through him, but it was hard to focus. Someone was slipping his glasses back on his face – not Jack – and he opened his eyes to meet Charles Xavier for the first time. Everything was fuzzy, and the words slid in and out of his ears as he struggled not to pass out again. “—authorities—” he heard, and, “—ambulance is on the way; can you—awake?”

Scott tried to push himself up, made it to his arms, and then collapsed back to the ground in a whimper. “Ja..k?” he forced out. There were people around, he realised, rushing back and forth, and too much noise. Charles opened his mouth and started talking. Scott struggled to stay awake, but didn’t manage to hear the answer, blacked out and came back to, “—safe now, Scott,” and Scott believed him.

~~~

Scott woke to darkness around him and a familiar sharp pain in his head. A moan escaped, but the sound was muffled by the tight wad of cloth tied into his mouth, and he panicked – tried to shove it out, to spit it out, to pull it free but his hands were trapped behind his back, rough rope biting into his wrists, and everything that had happened slammed into him. Scott shook his head, whimpered, and pulled against the rope until his wrists were raw. He flopped onto his back and kicked out – hit metal and freaked, kicking and fighting his bonds until he ran out of energy and lay there panting and exhausted.

He pulled in as much air as he could through his nostrils, held it, and then released. Repeated. And again, until he was calmer, and realised there was carpet under his head and the steady revving of an engine thrumming vibrations through him. Car trunk, then. A lot more cars outside, too, and the heavy horn of a semi blaring, doubling the intensity of the relentless pounding in his head, so he’d guess the interstate, most likely. Even if he could open his eyes, he wouldn’t be able to, he thought despondently, but whatever blindfold Jack had used was tied too tight for even that option.

Scott twisted his body as much as he could in the cramped space, feeling it out to get an idea of how much room he had to work with – barely any, couldn’t even stretch his legs out, and it’d been a while since he’d cursed himself for getting so damned tall – then kicked hard at what he estimated to be the back seat. He repeated the move, then again, and again in a steady clockwork rhythm, making himself annoying enough to catch Jack’s attention.

An age passed before the car began to slow, pulled off the highway it sounded like, and then the road grew rough and bumpy, knocking him back and forth, jostling his throbbing head until it eventually came to a stop. He kicked the seat again, this time out of annoyance, heard the sound of the door slamming shut, then more silence. Time skipped on blankly, and Scott had no idea how long he lay there, began to contemplate the idea that Jack had decided this wasn’t worth it after all and was just going to leave him here for the X-Men to find. Gravel crunched outside. Scott sighed.

Cool, fresh air rushed in when the trunk popped a second later, a welcome relief. He shifted around, tried to sit up, but a hand on his head slammed him back down. Scott ground his teeth, squeezing his eyes tight to try and bring some manner of relief to the sharp, needling pain spreading from his head into his neck. Jack held him down for another second before he let go. This time, Scott didn’t move.

“You gonna cause me trouble?” Jack asked. Scott didn’t answer, not without context with which to frame the question. “Still got a drive left ‘til we get where we’re going,” he continued. “So are you gonna cause me any trouble?” He hesitated, then slowly jerked his head back and forth. Jack grunted and pulled him out. His feet caught on the lip of the trunk and he crashed into the ground with a muffled curse as gravel stabbed into his face. “Get up.”

It took a second to gather himself and his feet under him. “You gotta piss?” Jack asked, and then, before Scott could say yes, added, “I ain’t untying you even if you do.” Scott set his jaw and shook his head.

Jack dragged him, stumbling, what he assumed was around the car, and then the door clicked open and he was shoved inside, left barely any time to pull his legs in before the door slammed shut. The noise sent his head ringing, and Scott dug his head into the seat. Bile crawled up the back of his throat, and he swallowed it down, paced his breathing until the pain began to ebb. They were driving again, he realised then.

Scott flopped over until he was lying on his back. It was more comfortable – more room for his legs – even with his hands digging obtrusively into the small of his back. He wished he could see – wished he could talk – wished he wasn’t here at all, thought, _‘This shouldn’t be happening,’_ because he’d been safe. They’d all reassured him, years ago and again this week. Safety was an illusion he’d bought into for too long when he’d learned young it was never to be trusted. Safety never lasted.

“Bet you’re wonderin’ how I busted out,” Jack started. His voice echoed loudly around the inside of the cab, forcing every bit of Scott’s attention to him even as he wanted nothing more than to block Jack out. _‘Should’ve stayed in the trunk,_ ’ he thought because it was just as uncomfortable but at least it was quiet without Jack’s voice in his ear, a constant reminder of what was happening that he couldn’t distance himself from. “Made real good friends with one of the guards. Good ol’ Nate. Let me walk straight out the front door. Tracked you down for me, too.”

Hysterical desperation buried into his chest as he processed that. The prison guard had let Jack out, he’d known that, but that _prison guard_ had helped Jack find him, had taken the time to track him down for this…this abusive piece of shit who’d nearly killed him. Who’d terrorised him for near on two years of his life, yet still couldn’t be content with that. Scott grunted and kicked the door, didn’t let himself hyperventilate, not here, swallowed down the panic threatening to drown him. That could come later.

Jack kept talking, blabbering on about his time in prison, and Scott tuned him out, let it wash over him like white noise. Stilted bursts of anger cracked through sporadically, making Scott flinch even as he tried not to, but years later and some things were still ingrained in him, buried deep into the core of who he was.

“Not too long now before we get there,” Jack said, then, which set a low thrum of fear curling up in the bottom of his stomach, turned his hands clammy and his throat into sandpaper because Scott still didn’t know where they were going, what they were doing, or what Jack wanted with him if he wasn’t planning to kill him. “You remember that last job we pulled?” Scott stayed still, swallowed gravel his mouth was so dry and tried to force the feeling of Jack beating him to death out of his bones.

He did, of course. The whole event stayed seared into his memory, but most clearly of all was the Professor. He’d been there when Scott had woken up in the hospital, had caught the initial panic before it could blossom and blanketed a gentle calm over him as he reassured that Jack was dealt with then promised Scott a home and anything else he needed. He’d gotten the closest thing he’d had to a father since his burnt up in that plane in the sky with every bit of life he’d known. The Professor was looking for him. Would find him. _‘You’re not alone,’_ Jean had said, as well as, _‘You have all of us,’_ and it was only a matter of time until the X-Men showed up.

This wasn’t his life anymore. Scott clung to that with everything in him.

“—finish what we started,” Jack was saying. “Need a second pair of hands for this, which is where you come in. Those eyes of yours’ve always been real handy, too.” The words were muffled through a wall of cotton stuffed in his ears, distant even if blocking them out completely was impossible. “This can go real smooth, kid; it’s up to you. Don’t make it worse for yourself again.” What Scott heard instead: _‘Don’t make me kill you for real this time.’_ He squeezed his hands until his nails bit into his palms and didn’t think about three weeks in the hospital and two surgeries, medical comas or days spent on a respirator in the ICU.

Jack stopped talking after that, and Scott breathed a sigh out through his nose at the blessed silence. Then the radio crackled, and hair metal blasted through the car speakers. Jack made a pleased noise, and the volume cranked up even louder, leaving his skull pounding so intensely his head was set to explode. It was impossible to keep track of time after that – impossible to keep track of time before, really, blindfolded as he was.

This wasn’t his life, he reminded himself again. The X-Men _were_ coming.

Hours, it felt like, or maybe just minutes before the car suddenly jerked to a stop, sending Scott careening forward off the backseat. His head crashed into the seat in front of him. Scott moaned. The car door, then silence, and he tried to pull himself back up, stuck halfway to the floor as he was, but it was near impossible to gain leverage with his hands behind his back, and by the time he planted a foot into the seat enough to hoist himself up, a hand was in his hair, dragging him out of the car, and he dropped hard onto the dirt.

Jack was behind him, and Scott stayed still. The blindfold came off, then, and then the gag; keeping his eyes closed was automatic until he felt the familiar slide of his shades pushed back onto his face, and he shuddered in relief. He looked around, craning his neck, but there wasn’t much to take in. The area around them was desolate, filled in by thick, dense foliage. There were lights in the distance, and they highlighted a barbed wire fence that didn’t mean anything good. His heart plummeted, and he repeated it again in his mind that they’d be here, his team; this was temporary. Jack jerked him back up to his feet.

“You remember how this goes, or do you need a refresher?” Jack sneered.          

Scott swallowed down the obstruction in his throat and each word shook as he forced out, “You can’t make me help you.” Jack’s telepathy was uncontrolled – unrefined at best – and he’d been able to resist it before he’d spent the past four years living in close quarters with Charles Xavier, and the past two dating Jean. He didn’t think about the other ways Jack could force him.

Jack laughed. “Refresher, then.” The punch landed in Scott’s abdomen. He dropped to his knees gasping, trying desperately to recapture the air forced out of his lungs. Jack raised his fist to hit him again, and Scott jerked back before it landed, rolled and landed outside of Jack’s reach. He glanced back at the plant and then out at the rest of the woods surrounding them, and Jack said, “Where do you think you’re gonna run to, boy?”

Scott didn’t have an answer. A tingle, a tug, and they were both suddenly far in the distance, appearing on the other side of the fence. Scott could see the light from the guards’ flashlights arcing across the ground just past the corner of the far wall, could hear them laughing with each other as they moved closer. He shook his head, took a step back and then another. Jack rolled his eyes. A hand clamped down on the back of Scott’s neck and dragged him forward; he dug his feet in and pulled against him. This time, Jack’s fist came down hard on his side. A sharp ache blossomed in his side, and Scott barely managed to bite down the moan that wanted to break free. He tugged against the rope instinctively, trying to pull his hands around to cradle his chest, but they stayed just as trapped behind him.

“Dumbass brat,” Jack muttered. “You’re real determined to make things difficult, aren’t you?” He pressed a finger harshly over what had to be a cracked rib, and Scott blinked through the wetness in his eyes, trying and failing to suppress the noise that elicited.

“Did you hear something?” came from the guards in the distance. Scott’s stomach dropped. He twisted his head, slammed his elbow back into Jack’s body, didn’t think about how useless fighting back stayed. He couldn’t. The light was turned in their direction now, and Scott wanted to shout and warn them away, but that would just bring them closer. Jack huffed, irritated, and then one arm was wrapped around Scott’s neck in a choke hold, and Scott stilled. He could only manage thin wisps of air, but at least Jack was letting him breathe at all. If he was even thinking about Scott right now.

“Hey!” Jack shouted out. A hush fell, and then a came a murmur, a sharp, _“What was that?”_ Scott could just barely make out, and the light picked up pace in their direction. Jack’s lips brushed his ear, said, “Ready for some fun?”

Scott shook his head furiously and choked out a, “No, you…can’t…I won’t…” that barely managed to be a sound at all with the tight grip around his neck holding his head still. Jack yanked the shades off his face, and Scott squeezed his eyes shut. He pulled against the rope. It still didn’t weaken, leaving him with nothing but a deeper burn and Jack’s hand resting heavy on top of his head.

Shouting erupted, then, as he assumed the guards stepped around the corner. “Hold it right there!” one yelled, and guns cocked.

The noise Jack made in response sat halfway between amused and cocky, not quite a laugh. The hand on his head lowered to his face, and Scott shook his head, the movements small and jerky, but he couldn’t stop fingers from digging into his eyes, and he couldn’t stop Jack peeling his eyes open, and he couldn’t stop the path of destruction wreaked out in front of him, blasting through the group of guards. Jack swivelled Scott’s head, and the wall was gone. Alarms blared, then, the sound screeching a battering ram straight through his head. Jack dropped him. Scott closed his eyes, curled into himself, and threw up.

The cacophony of noise was too much for Scott to pick through, so he stayed still, mostly, still heaving into the dirt until Jack reappeared an overbearing presence next to him. A kick to his side – not the broken one, small favours, still made him heave again, still sent spindling threading sharp pinpricks of pain lighting up the nerves on his bad side – and the man barked a, “Get up!” that made Scott push himself back up to unsteady knees. He swayed and nearly crashed back down as wooziness ate away at his awareness.

“You don’t fucking listen anymore,” Jack snarled. His hand squeezed around Scott’s arm, making bone creak, and he pulled him back to his feet and along behind him, and Scott stumbled to keep up, barely managing to keep on his feet as the world spun out underneath him. He was going to throw up again.

“Wait – Jack,” he tried, but Jack wasn’t listening to him, didn’t care about his wellbeing or what he had to say, only cared about where he needed to go. He cut a path straight through the building, peeling Scott’s eyes open when necessary to take out an obstruction every time he ignored the ordered, _“Open your eyes”_ screamed over the cacophony surrounding them – guard or wall or machine, it didn’t matter, only mattered to Scott, but what Scott cared about didn’t matter at all. Jack seemed to know the layout of this plant, and Scott bit out a laugh, suddenly wondering if that prison guard had gotten schematics for this place for Jack, too.

“Hurry _up_.” He yanked on Scott’s arm, shoving him through remnants of destruction. His pace didn’t let up when Scott tripped over debris he couldn’t see or slammed into a wall in his way; he just hit him again when Scott stumbled too much. Finally – _finally_ – they stopped.

“Huh,” Jack said then, “I think this is it.” He released Scott onto unsteady, swaying legs, and Scott stayed where he was, breathing hard as he felt the man move around behind him. Another grip on his arm, then. Scott braced himself for – anything, _everything_ , really. Jack could decide to break it just because again, to slam him into the wall, pull at it until his shoulder popped, and his breathing picked up at every lived-through possibility that broached his mind. Nothing would surprise him at this point; nothing except: the rope around his wrists came untied and fell away, and Jack stepped around him again and Scott found his glasses shoved into his chest. He wasted no time in putting them back on his face.

Scott had been experiencing this place on flashes so far, seeing nothing but naked destruction to orient himself in the maze of a plant, but now he glanced around and realised they were in a room full of machines. A testing lab. Jack shoved him forward, pushing Scott over to a control panel at the far end, set into the wall next to another room cut off by a huge glass window.

It was all too terrifyingly familiar.

“You remember how to work this, kid.” It wasn’t a question, but it didn’t need to be. That, like most of his time with Jack, was permanently tattooed across his memory, buried under caked on layers of repression but always there. He also remembered what came after: trapped alone with Jack, an even more impossibly strong nightmare.

Scott stood frozen, unable to form the words to agree or disagree. _‘X-Men,’_ he reminded himself, _‘they’re…they’re coming,’_ but here in this moment it did nothing to help. Jack shoved him again.

“You—,” he started, swallowed, cleared his throat, and then started anew, steadying his voice. “You can’t make me help you,” he repeated from earlier, and the taste of the lie sat heavy on his tongue. Jack had already demonstrated how patently untrue that was, but this wasn’t different: this was Jack in another room, dependent on Scott operating the controls. He swallowed, throat parched, and stared ashen-faced at Jack, his heart going so fast it was in danger of flat-lining. Jack, though…whatever the machine would turn him into was a nightmare Scott wasn’t sure he could stand to face.

A nightmare Scott wasn’t sure he’d survive if he faced.

A heavy hand landed on his shoulder, kneaded at the suddenly-tense muscle. It inched up his shoulder slowly until fingers tickled at his neck, and Scott did his best to stop the tremor that had overtaken him, but then Jack’s hand was on his throat, slowly squeezing the air out of him. Scott was fifteen again and terrified of dying, all thoughts of the Professor and the X-Men dissipated into the air, but there was no guard this time, no one’s life on the line but his own.

“St…op,” he pushed free, “…help…” and he could breathe again. Jack let him go. Scott slumped down to the ground and coughed, but coughing felt like grating sandpaper over the inside of his throat.

“That’s more like it,” Jack said, and the pleasure in his voice made Scott shudder. This was just…buying time, he justified. The amount of noise they’d made, the Professor would find him – the team had to be already on their way. He might not be able to take down Jack alone, but even if Jack got stronger…he couldn’t get stronger than the Juggernaut, it wasn’t possible. Scott refused to believe that because the thought itself made him want to curl up in bed and never emerge from his sheets, but there was no bed and there was no sheets because all that was here was Jack and the very likely possibility that he was going to die when the man got what he wanted.

Dying in five minutes was better than dying right now, though, so he pushed himself back up to his feet and looked at the console.

“Apparently, they retired these Cyclotrons,” Jack said then. “It took a real long time to track this one down—“ Scott tuned him out then, focussed his attention on the nobs and the screen instead. Jack walked past him, then walked back, grabbed Scott’s arm and his attention and added, “You know what’ll happen if you run, boy.” Scott jerked it back and gave a sharp nod.

 _‘Buying time,_ ’ he repeated, _‘buying time,’_ letting the mantra fill him with fake courage the more he repeated it.

Jack walked into the other room – the radiation room – and Scott stared blankly at the controls in front of him. He turned the thing on, adjusting dials and releasing the isotopes for Jack to bathe in. He could hear the man laugh, satisfied, through the wall, and the sound curled under his skin, twisted a rope around his heart and pulled it taught, squeezing until it hurt. This machine was different than the old one, Scott realised as he looked it over. He glanced back up. Jack wasn’t paying him any more mind, but a second glance sent Scott’s heart racing again.

“Yes!” he could hear Jack exclaiming, celebrating the newfound strength rushing into him as his whole body changed in front of Scott’s eyes. It wasn’t long now, he knew, before this would be done.

It wasn’t a thought that turned into action, then, so much as Scott’s hands moved automatically, paged through to a different screen. He stared at it for too long, couldn’t process what he was seeing through the blinding headache, but Scott turned it on anyway. And then the next thing, and the next, and Jack’s cackling delight petered off.

“What—?” he heard, and then, “No!” A loud crunch caught Scott’s attention, and he looked up to see Jack, face furious, punching at the wall. His movements were stilted – slowed, somehow, and Scott didn’t know what he’d turned on, but the only thought running through his head was _, ‘It’s working,’_ except Jack punched the glass again and it cracked.

“The fuck you think you’re doing?” Jack roared. Another punch – slower still – and the glass shattered entirely. Jack staggered forward. “I might be movin’…slower than ever,” he growled, “But you’re trapped in here with me! Nowhere to run!”

Jack dove forward, but optic blasts slammed into his chest, sending him flying back into the room he was trying to escape. Scott cranked the first dial he touched all the way up, and then the next one over. The screech Jack made was inhuman and pained, and he roared, louder, “I’ll kill you for this! I’ll rip you apart!”

Scott didn’t let up, focussed every bit of power he could muster into keeping Jack pinned and flicked the next switch he felt. Something was…was happening to Jack. His screams stopped being threats, then, turned to sounds of straight pain. His hand hovered over the switch he’d just flicked, ready to turn it off, but then Scott…stopped. Jack couldn’t move to free himself, and parts of him were flickering in and out. The look on his face switched from anger to pure terror, and then there was a bright explosion of light. Scott closed his eyes and ducked behind the console, hastily pulling his shades back on. The whir of machines died down, burnt out. Scott had to drag himself to his feet, almost fell back down twice.

Jack wasn’t saying anything. Scott’s heart thrummed, and he took a stumbling step back, waited for him to emerge from the smoke raging. He flinched at the thought. Except more time passed, and Jack still hadn’t emerged, and the smoke was clearing… Jack was gone. Scott stared at the spot he’d been pinned down to with disbelief. A crunch sounded behind him, and he jumped, swung around, but Jack wasn’t there either. He was…

“Oh, god,” Scott whimpered as a cold wave of realisation washed over him, seeping into his bones. “Oh, god, no. I—“

He collapsed boneless to his knees, every ounce of energy drained out of him. His eyes wouldn’t even dent the floor right now if he let them loose. Scott threw up. It kept going until he dry-heaved, then he dragged himself back and sat leaning against one of the machines in the room. There was noise outside – more noise – and he swallowed, waited for another guard to bust in and arrest him. Scott felt separated from himself – adrift, nothing left processing in his mind, and time stretched out into nothing, not passing at all and speeding by simultaneously. He thought, for a minute, that someone might be watching him, felt the crawl of eyes on him climb up his spine, caught a moving shadow out of his eye, tall and looming like a nightmare, eyes glowing red.

The door to the room slammed open, snapping through the haze, and it was Logan. “Found him!” he shouted, and then walked closer, sniffing the room, and when he spoke again, the low, familiar growl was a safety blanket settling over Scott. “Where is he?”

Scott didn’t answer, stared blankly through him. Logan came closer, stepped around the putrid pile of puke on the floor and crouched next to him. “Scott,” he heard, and his name was a jolt in that voice, cut straight through the haze, snapping his attention to Logan who never called anyone by name if he could help it. “You okay, kid?”

“I—,” he started, then cut himself off, still couldn’t quite focus and it was near impossible to talk with the swelling that had weld up in his throat. “I killed him,” he croaked. Logan didn’t react, not at first. And then:

“You what?”

“Jack’s dead,” Scott rasped, the words otherwise flat, the emotion drained from them as thoroughly as it was drained from him. “I…killed him.”

A hand rubbed his shoulder then, surprisingly gentle. “You did what you had to do.”

Scott opened his mouth, didn’t know what he was trying to say – didn’t have any words to come out – but then heard, “Scott!” out loud and in his mind, reverberating through him, and Jean flew into the room. He stared at her, watched her land next to him.

“Jean,” Logan said, but she shushed him with a look then turned back to Scott. He was crying suddenly, sharply, quiet sobs shaking through him, and he didn’t know when he’d started, but couldn’t hold back the water leaking out over his face. It bubbled up inside him, and teeth dug into his lip as he sobbed harder. Jean wrapped her arms around him immediately, whispered words of comfort he couldn’t hear into his ear as Scott repeated, “I killed him,” in an unending loop.

The rest of Friday – it was Friday now – came and went in a rush, the night spent in the hospital and then the day, doctors and everyone else fussing over him, too many hugs from Kurt, even more from Kitty, and even a quick one from Rogue. Scott didn’t remember getting from the plant to the hospital, but he didn’t want to, didn’t even want to think about Jack or what had happened. The concussion was the worst of his injuries, the doctors said, and the ribs and throat, but it’d all heal with time, they said. Everything always healed with time.

Fred Duncan came to see him, more apologies, brushed Scott’s dazed confession off with a frown and more than a little prodding from the Professor, no doubt, and Scott went back to sleep. He woke up and found the room empty, save for the Professor sitting next to his bed, typing away at his laptop.

“How are you feeling?” the Professor asked before Scott could speak.

‘Empty’ was the word that came to mind, but it didn’t feel like the right answer even as he knew the Professor would insist there was no right answer, so instead he said, “Alive,” the same as he had waking up in the hospital four years ago, but at least this time, Jack really was dealt with.

The Professor’s resulting smile was sad. “What happened was not your fault, Scott. It was self-defence; he would’ve killed you otherwise.”

 _‘I know,’_ Scott thought because it hurt too much to continue to speak, but he remembered the moment before, the split-second choice he’d made. _‘But I still…’_ Jack was still dead, and it was still his fault – he still felt relief most starkly. All these years later, and Jack Winters had finally managed to turn Scott into a killer.

 _‘I think,’_ Scott continued then, _‘I think I should talk about this.’_

The Professor studied his face carefully, and Scott avoided his eyes, stared down at the hands resting and twiddling together in his lap. “Very well. I’ll arrange it.”

The hospital released him soon after, and the ride back to Bayville was both too long and too short, the Blackbird always relaxing but the turbulence wreaked havoc on his injuries. Scott avoided everyone else as soon as they landed, retreated to his room and video called Alex – _“Woah, dude, you look like shit!”_ – let his world tilt back a little closer to the proper axis. The Professor spoke with him once more, and Jean brought him up dinner later, then sat with him until he drugged himself into dreamless sleep.

Saturday, Scott lay in bed for too long staring up at the not-red ceiling above him, thought about the past week, the past few years, his whole life…and then his alarm screeched, and he rolled out of bed and pulled his clothes on. He couldn’t bring himself to face everyone in the kitchen, not yet – not with everything still raw, rattling around broken inside of him, and he was barred from all X-activities for the foreseeable future, as well, until Beast cleared him physically, and Scott didn’t know which of those situations would improve first. Those were considerations for later, though, because it was nearing eleven, and according to the Professor, he had a new appointment to keep.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Comments are much loved and appreciated.


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